Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustáriz (1798–1857) was a Peruvian scientist, geologist, mineralogist, chemist, archaeologist, politician, and diplomat. After schooling in Arequipa, he was sent in 1810 at age 12 to London to study mathematics, physics, and languages. In 1817 he traveled to France to the École royale des mines de Paristo study mineralogy and chemistry. In France he met Joseph Louis Proust, Gay-Lussac, and Alexander von Humboldt. The latter became his mentor and, during the course of his travels in Europe, Rivero discovered a new iron-oxalate that ...

This book, published in 1826 at the press of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra Monastery, is a comprehensive account of the monastery and its establishment. Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, also called the Monastery of the Kiev Caves (pechera means cave; lavra indicates a monastery of status), is a large complex founded in 1051 by a monk named Anthony in caves dug out of the hillside. The monastery soon became central to Christianity in Russia and to local cultural development, supporting writers, physicians, scientists, and artists. After a fire in 1718, most of the lavra ...

Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyá al-Wansharīsī (1430 or 1431–1508) was a jurist and scholar of the Maliki school of Islamic jurisprudence. He was born in Jabal Wansharīs, but his family moved when he was a child to nearby Tilimcen in present-day western Algeria, where he studied and later taught Maliki law. His relationship with Tilimcen ruler Sultan Muhammad IV of the Banu Abd al-Wad dynasty soured under circumstances that are unclear, and he consequently fled to Fez, Morocco. With the help of his former student Muhammad ibn al-Gardīs, al-Wansharīsī was able ...

The first Persian printing press in Iran was established in 1816 in Tabriz, and the first book published by the press was Jihādīyyah (Treatise on holy war), written by Abu al-Qasim ibn 'Isá Qa'im'maqam Farahani (circa 1779–1835), the prime minister of Persia at that time. During the reign of King Fath Ali Shah (1772–1834, reigned 1797–1834), while the Qajar government was absorbed with managing domestic turmoil, rival European colonial powers sought to establish themselves in the region. The British competed for influence in the south ...

This 1825 manuscript, prepared for a print edition, is a handbook on theoretical and practical music, written in Katharevousa, a purist form of Modern Greek developed in the early 19th century and at that time widely used for literary and official purposes. The work is an introduction to the Byzantine notation for the liturgical chant used in the Greek Orthodox Church that most likely was intended for students of Byzantine ecclesiastical music. The text probably was written by a scribe named Basileios Nikolaḯdes Byzantios. On the first page, which is ...

This handwritten copy of Paisiĭ Khilendarski’s Istoriia slavianobolgarskaia (Slaveno-Bulgarian history) was made in 1841 by the priest Vasilii Manuilov. In addition to the main text, the manuscript contains accounts of two miracles of the Holy Mother. First published in 1762, Paisiĭ’s history encouraged the Bulgarians, who had been under Ottoman rule for centuries, to discover their national consciousness and to embrace the Bulgarian language. The work was so influential that it was copied by hand and excerpted many times without Paisiĭ being identified as the author or his ...

Known as the “exercise book of the Idylls,” this autograph manuscript of the great Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837) is preserved at the National Library of Naples. It consists of a booklet with lined pages, on which the author’s handwriting stands out sharp and clear. The booklet constitutes the basic draft of Leopardi’s Idilli (Idylls), composed between 1819 and 1821. Included are La ricordanza (The remembrance) which later was titled Alla luna (To the moon), L’Infinito (The infinite), Lo spavento notturno (Nocturnal fright), Sera del giorno ...

This account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, published in 1814, is based on the detailed journals kept by Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the leaders of expedition. The book begins with “Life of Captain Lewis,” written by Thomas Jefferson, which reproduces Jefferson’s detailed instructions to Lewis regarding the goals of the expedition. “The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, and such principal streams of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregan [sic ...

The Japanese art of Ukiyo-e (“Pictures of the floating [or sorrowful] world”) developed in the city of Edo (now Tokyo) during the Tokugawa or Edo Period (1600-1868), a relatively peaceful era during which the Tokugawa shoguns ruled Japan and made Edo the seat of power. The Ukiyo-e tradition of woodblock printing and painting continued into the 20th century. This print, made in 1833 or 1834, is part of the series "Small Flowers" by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). It is unusual in its background color and its size. Other examples of this ...

This colored travel sketch of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) as seen from the eastern part of the town of Scutari (present-day Üsküdar) across the Bosporus Strait is by the Danish painter Martinus Rørbye (1803–48), a central figure in the "Golden Age" of Danish art (circa 1770–1900). After training at the Kunstakademiet, Rørbye travelled widely, to France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey. In 1833 he was one of the first artists to paint in Skagen, in the far north of Denmark, some 45 years before it became an artists’ haven. He ...

Robert Hermann Schomburgk (1804–65) was a British naturalist and surveyor known for his pioneering surveys of British Guiana (present-day Guyana). Born and educated in Germany, he traveled to the West Indies in 1830 where he completed a survey of one of the Virgin Islands that was published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1835–39, under the direction of the Royal Geographical Society, he explored the Essequibo and Berbice Rivers in northern South America and completed a survey of British Guiana. Upon returning to Europe, he ...

This work is a rare Qing copy of the 1256 Southern Song manuscript calendar, copied by painter Cheng Xugu in 1815. The first page records the location of the god of the year 1256, the nine constellations, the seven-color spectrum, and the size of the moon. Following this page is the report, dated the tenth month of the third year of the Baoyou reign of the Southern Song (1255) and submitted by the Astrological Service Bureau, responding to the imperial order to print the calendar. The report was signed by ...

This work, Xi fang yao ji, also entitled Yu lan Xi fang yao ji (Description of the most important kingdoms of the West for the emperor’s inspection), was written jointly by Li Leisi (Chinese name of Ludovico Buglio, 1606–82), An Wensi (Gabriel de Magalhães, 1609–77), and Nan Huairen (Ferdinand Verbiest, 1623–88). Buglio was an Italian Jesuit mathematician and theologian. He arrived in China in 1640 and preached in Sichuan, Fujian, and Jiangxi. He and fellow Jesuit Magalhães were pressed to serve the rebel leader Zhang Xianzhong ...

This map by Thomas Gamaliel Bradford (1802–87), depicting parts of the Middle East and Central Asia, appeared in Bradford’s A Comprehensive Atlas: Geographical, Historical & Commercial, which was published in Boston in 1835. Bradford was born in Boston of a distinguished New England family. He made maps of both U.S. states and foreign countries and became the assistant editor of the Encyclopedia Americana, the first significant encyclopedia produced in the United States. The map uses colored lines to delineate the boundaries of the Persian Empire, Afghanistan, Arabia ...

This 1833 map in Latin shows the conquests of Alexander the Great (356–323 BC), whose empire stretched from present-day Greece through Turkey and the Middle East to Afghanistan. In 326 BC Alexander set out to conquer India, but he was stymied when his exhausted armies mutinied on the banks of the Hyphasis River (now known as the Beas River) in northern India. The map shows the cities that Alexander founded and named after himself, including Alexandria Arachosia (Kandahar, Afghanistan), Alexandria Ariana (Herat, Afghanistan), Alexandria, Egypt, and many others. Place-names ...

Biographic Sketch of Mohammad Ali (1769–1849), composed by an unknown author, was published in Washington in 1837. Muḥammad ʻAlī was pasha and wali(governor) of Egypt within the Ottoman Empire from 1805 until his death. The book begins by comparing him to Napoleon, noting that they shared the same birth year and the same “insatiate ambition.” The author describes Muḥammad ʻAlī’s military service under the Ottoman governor of Kavalla in Rumelia (northeastern Greece). Muḥammad ʻAlī also became a tobacco dealer during this period, an experience that probably inspired ...

Josiah Conder (1789–1855) was a British publisher and author who wrote or compiled 33 volumes of travel literature about nearly every region of the world, including the Middle East. Conder himself never traveled abroad and composed his works by drawing upon the writings of earlier scholars and explorers. As indicated in the subtitle, Conder organized his book on Arabia into sections. He begins by describing the topography of the different regions of Arabia and such climatic phenomena as the semoum (poison) winds that blow across the Syrian Desert in ...

James Baillie Fraser left his native Scotland for India in 1813. After a short and unsuccessful stint working in a trading business in Kolkata (Calcutta), in 1815 he joined his brother William Fraser on an expedition to find the sources of the Jumna and Ganges rivers. He documented the trip in Journal of a Tour through Part of the Snowy Range of the Himālā Mountains, published in 1820. A skilled artist who produced sketches and acquatints of different parts of India, in 1821 Fraser accompanied Dr. Andrew Jukes of the ...

Adrien-Hubert Brué (1786−1832) was a French geographer and cartographer who as a young man accompanied the explorer Nicolas Baudin on his 1800−1803 voyage to New Holland (Australia). Brué returned to France to become an important geographer, associated with the Institut Geographique de Paris and geographer to the king. His Grand atlas universel (Large universal atlas) was first published in 1816 and issued in revised and updated editions in 1825, 1830, and 1838. Shown here is Brué’s map of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, Greece, and the Ionian ...

This world map was completed by Takahashi Kageyasu (1785−1829) of Tenmonkata (the office in charge of astronomy). He began the work on the 1807 by order of the shogunate government, with the assistance of astronomer Hazama Shigetomi and Dutch interpreter Baba Sajūrō, who was summoned to Edo (present-day Tokyo) from Nagasaki in 1808. Kageyasu submitted the first version of the map to the government in 1810. The East Asian region was later revised and this version of the map was etched by Aōdō Denzen in 1816. The year of ...

This portrait of Alessandro Guerra (1790−1862) was produced by Vincent (also called Vincenzo) Gozzini and engraved by Giovanni Paolo Lasinio around 1830, the period in which Guerra (dubbed "Il furioso" for his daring style of acrobatics on horseback) was at the height of his performing success. The rhymed couplet at the bottom of the illustration refers to Guerra’s skill and his worldwide fame. A direct rival of the famous English equestrian acrobat Andrew Ducrow, Guerra was one of the most significant artists of the circus in the early ...

This poster, dated 1835 and printed by the firm of Andreola in Treviso, Italy, advertises a show by the Acrobatic, Athletic, and Olympic Company, one of the last touring companies that performed in theaters in what was known as an acrobatic “cultured” repertoire show. Such shows combined dance and pantomime, with artists playing specific roles. Popular throughout the 18th century, the shows were no longer in vogue by this period. Over time, the acrobatic artists, such as Pietro Bono, the tightrope walker featured in this poster, were incorporated into the ...

Lake Baikal and the region around it were extensively explored by Russian expeditions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This map shows in great detail the shoreline of the lake and the network of rivers flowing into and out of Baikal. The title of the map is shown in a cartouche. Below the title is a single-headed eagle, holding in its talons the coat of arms of Irkutsk Province. The illustration at the lower left is a view of Nikolaevsk Pier, located at the point where the Angara ...

Aritmetika is the first arithmetic textbook published in Bulgarian and the first textbook written by Khristaki Pavlovich (1804−48). It was widely used in 19th century Bulgaria. The book covers basic arithmetic, but it also includes instructions on calculating dates of various Orthodox holidays using a device called ruka paskhalna (a palm to calculate the dates of Easter) or ruka mesiachna (a palm to calculate the days in a month). These devices are also known as Damascene hands or hands of Damascus. The book was published in Serbia, which had ...

The monument to Tsar Alexander I (1777−1825) was unveiled on October 23 (October 11, Old Style), 1831, to commemorate Alexander’s visit to and death from illness in Taganrog, a village in southern Russian located on the north shore of the Sea of Azov. The tsar’s widow, Elizaveta Alekseevna, chose the site for the monument. Most of the money for its construction was donated by the imperial house of Romanov; the rest was raised by the residents of Taganrog. The bronze figure of the emperor at full height ...

This map of Central Asia appeared in the 1839 edition of Stieler's Hand-Atlas über alle Theile der Erde (Stieler’s portable atlas of all parts of the Earth), edited by Adolf Stieler and published by the firm of Justus Perthes in Gotha, Germany. The map was compiled and drawn in 1829 by Heinrich Karl Wilhelm Berghaus (1797−1884) and updated by him in 1834. The numbered key in the lower right-hand corner of the map indicates the states of the region as they existed in 1834. They included the ...

Dīvān-i Silsilah va al-Ẕahab (literally, The collection book of the chain of gold) is a work of Persian literature in verse. It forms volume one of a seven-volume literary collection of Mowlana Nur al-Din Abd al-Rahman Jami (1414−92), the famous Persian scholar, poet, and Sufi. The entire collection is known as Haft awrang (The seven thrones) and was one of Jami’s first major works. Volume one is the longest volume, composed sometime between 1468 and 1486. This manuscript copy seems incomplete, as the final narrative of verses on ...

Following passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, President Andrew Jackson implemented a policy of land exchanges and forced expulsion of the eastern Native Americans to regions west of the Mississippi River. Epitomized by the “Trail of Tears” followed by the Cherokee in their forced journey from their ancestral homes to lands in what is now Oklahoma, Jackson’s policy set the stage for decades of native resettlement and for the widespread establishment of reservations. This map shows the approximate boundaries of the lands assigned to the relocated tribes ...

This engraving depicts a scene from the rebellions of 1837−38 in Canada, which were sparked by dissatisfaction with the political status quo. Discontent raged in particular over British dominance of the affairs of what were then still two separate colonies, Lower Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Quebec) and Upper Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Ontario). In the rebellion, the reform leaders of Lower Canada, the most prominent being Louis Joseph Papineau (1786−1871), drew on long-simmering political tensions to recruit a ...

This engraving depicts a scene from the rebellions of 1837−38 in Canada, which were sparked by dissatisfaction with the political status quo. Discontent raged in particular over British dominance of the affairs of what were then still two separate colonies, Lower Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Quebec) and Upper Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Ontario). In the rebellion, the reform leaders of Lower Canada, the most prominent being Louis Joseph Papineau (1786−1871), drew on long-simmering political tensions to recruit a ...

This engraving depicts a scene from the rebellions of 1837−38 in Canada, which were sparked by dissatisfaction with the political status quo. Discontent raged in particular over British dominance of the affairs of what were then still two separate colonies, Lower Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Quebec) and Upper Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Ontario). In the rebellion, the reform leaders of Lower Canada, the most prominent being Louis Joseph Papineau (1786−1871), drew on long-simmering political tensions to recruit a ...

This engraving depicts a scene from the rebellions of 1837−38 in Canada, which were sparked by dissatisfaction with the political status quo. Discontent raged in particular over British dominance of the affairs of what were then still two separate colonies, Lower Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Quebec) and Upper Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Ontario). In the rebellion, the reform leaders of Lower Canada, the most prominent being Louis Joseph Papineau (1786−1871), drew on long-simmering political tensions to recruit a ...

This engraving depicts a scene from the rebellions of 1837−38 in Canada, which were sparked by dissatisfaction with the political status quo. Discontent raged in particular over British dominance of the affairs of what were then still two separate colonies, Lower Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Quebec) and Upper Canada (the southern portion of the present-day province of Ontario). In the rebellion, the reform leaders of Lower Canada, the most prominent being Louis Joseph Papineau (1786−1871), drew on long-simmering political tensions to recruit a ...

Carte de l'île de Cuba (Map of the island of Cuba) originally appeared in Alexander von Humboldt’s Essai politique sur l'île de Cuba (Political essay on the island of Cuba), published in Paris in 1826. The map was produced by the French cartographer and engraver Pierre M. Lapie (1779−1850), head of the topographical section in the French Ministry of War. It shows the outline of the coast of Cuba drawn according to astronomical observations by Spanish navigators and by Humboldt, who visited Cuba in 1800–1801 ...

José María de la Torre y de la Torre (1815−73) was an illustrious Cuban geographer, archaeologist, historian, and educator who devoted a great part of his intellectual life to the study of local Cuban history. This cartographic work of 1841 by José María de la Torre is important from a historical as well as a geographical point of view. It describes in detail the itineraries of the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas. The map shows the routes of each of Columbus’s three voyages, giving the dates ...

This document is an enclosure originally submitted by Henry Lee IV to Florida territorial judge Augustus Brevoort Woodward in September 1824. Lee sought Woodward’s assistance in securing claim to property purchased by his father, General Henry Lee, from Thomas Brown in 1817. On March 1, 1783, several “Kings and Warriors” representing Upper Creek, Lower Creek, and Seminole towns affixed their names and family marks to a document granting Thomas Brown, a British superintendent of Indian affairs, substantial territory west of Saint Augustine in what was then British East Florida ...

Campaign of the Indus: In a Series of Letters from an Officer of the Bombay Division is a privately published collection of letters, written by Lieutenant T.W. Holdsworth between November 27, 1838, and April 21, 1840. Holdsworth’s division was part of the Anglo-Indian force that invaded Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan War of 1839–42. Most of the letters are addressed to Holdsworth’s father, A.H. Holdsworth, who wrote the introduction and edited and published the book. The introduction sketches some of the history of Afghanistan, from ...

Hernani, ou l’Honneur castillan is a play in five acts by Victor Hugo (1802−85), which opened at the Comédie-Française in February 1830. Set during the Spanish Renaissance, it recounts the rivalries between a young man named Charles Quint, a bandit named Hernani, and the uncle of the lady whose love they all vie for, Dona Sol. Beyond the themes of honor, love, and history, this melodrama is best known for its departure from conventional classical tragedies (in particular the unities of place, time, and action) and it is ...

Fearing the influx of Christianity and foreign forces, in the Edo period (1603–1867) Japan prohibited foreign travel by Japanese people and trade and traffic with other countries, apart from Korea, China, and Holland. In 1828, Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold, a German who had come to Japan to work as a doctor at the Dutch trading post, tried to take some prohibited items, including maps of Japan, back to Holland when he completed his posting. Siebold was deported and barred from returning to Japan, while Takahashi Kageyasu (1785−1829 ...

Ryōgoku Bridge over the Sumida River in Edo (present-day Tokyo) was a lively place in the Edo period (1600−1868), the scene displays fireworks and other entertainments in the neighborhood of the bridge. First built in the middle of the 17th century as a wooden bridge, it was renovated and repaired several times before it was rebuilt using modern construction methods in 1904. This document is a pictorial record of the reconstruction of the bridge in 1839. The document is concertina-folded and each section of the bridge is depicted twice ...

This is a scrapbook in which the famous novelist Shikitei Sanba (1776−1822) has stuck the handouts from eight otoshibanashi or rakugo (literally, fallen words) performances held between 1808 and 1817, late in the Edo period (1600−1868). On the blank pages and in the spaces left by the pasted handouts Shikitei has written commentaries about the performances and information about the revival of rakugo. Rakugo is a traditional Japanese art form in which a single performer, dressed in traditional Japanese clothes, sits on his knees seiza-style and amuses the ...

On July 1, 1823, a Guatemalan National Constituent Assembly declared that the provinces that made up the Spanish Captaincy General of Guatemala, also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala, “are free and independent of old Spain, of Mexico, and of every other power.” The new country was called the United Provinces of Central America. It included the provinces of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. This 1826 map by Aaron Arrowsmith (1750-1826) thus covers the territory of the entire federation and not just Guatemala. Arrowsmith, who based his ...